Navigating the Landscape of Gun Ownership, Culture, and Reform

When it comes to talking about "gun culture" in the US, it's time challenge our understanding and reshape the discourse. This week. hosts Kelly and JJ sat down with with David Joy, a North Carolina native, award-winning novelist, and gun owner. This episode is a deep dive into how some folks form a collective relationship with firearms, a connection rooted in hunting traditions yet challenged by the shifting landscape of gun laws and culture.

Together, we go beyond the polarizing narratives, confronting the militarization of gun culture, and the differing perspectives shaped by socio-economic backgrounds and geographical location.  We shed light on how legal loopholes have allowed controversial weapons like ghost guns into the market, while also debunking myths surrounding gun laws and the NRA's role in gun reform, revealing the power of money in this debate. Lastly, we delve into the uncomfortable intersection of gun culture, gun reform, and white supremacy.

Further reading:
Gun Culture Is My Culture. And I Fear for What It Has Become (New York Times)
Guns in America (Time)
Many gun owners support gun control. So why don't they speak out? (NPR)
Guns, Lies, and Fear (Center for American Progress)

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

This is the legal disclaimer, where I tell you that the views, thoughts and opinion shared on this podcast belong solely to our guests and hosts, and not necessarily Brady or Brady's affiliates. Please note this podcast contains discussions of violence that some people may find disturbing. It's okay, we find it disturbing too. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Red Glue and Brady. I'm one of your hosts, jj, and I'm Kelly, your other host, and today, yet again, kelly has brought me a new friend who is far cooler than me.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Yeah. So I was at a conference earlier this year in Asheville, north Carolina, and that's where I met our guest today, david Joy, and he and I could not have more different backgrounds. He is a self-described mountain boy who lives in the country, he owns guns, he carries guns. I'm from the city and I don't own a gun at all. And you know he's white, I'm black, all these things right.

Speaker 2: 1:18

And so the way the narrative is around gun violence prevention and race in America, and even whether you live in the city or the country, would have us be totally at odds, right, but we're not. And I think that interaction, that experience, at least for me, was another reminder that, despite what the media tries to say, despite what the NRA tries to say, despite what I might even think and feel in terms of who is quote unquote someone I can handle with or not, and those things do not really reflect the human experiences that we all have, which is that we want to be safe, we want to be able to live our lives without the threat of gun violence. And so when I heard David speak about his experiences growing up with guns, his experiences now with guns and also the way that he feels misrepresented by the rhetoric from the NRA and the culture I knew he had to come on. So glad that he agreed to do so.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Yeah, I'm going to feel super corny saying this, especially because David is a novelist I'm so a much better writer than I am but he was an absolute joy to have on the podcast and I think, kelly, I just everything you just said, breaking down how the images that we have in our head about who is for gun violence prevention work, who is against gun violence prevention work completely wrong. I had. The only way to fix this and make this better is for us to keep talking to one another.

Speaker 3: 2:38

I'm David Joy. I'm from North Carolina and the mountains of North Carolina and my profession is that I'm a novelist, but really means I just try to get by doing as little as I can. But yeah, for the most part that's me. I'm born and raised in North Carolina. 12th generation North Carolinian make my living as a writer.

Speaker 1: 2:56

I was going to say and like multiple award-winning, very well-respected writer too, lest our listeners think that you're dropping like Chick Tracks in people's houses and stuff.

Speaker 3: 3:04

Yeah, like Hell in a man with the back of my truck.

Speaker 2: 3:07

As someone who loves creative writing, I feel like trying to write a book is so hard, so I just I would need to brag on you, even if you're going to be humble, because that is quite a feat to do it more than one. In addition to writing novels, you've written other pieces, and in a piece you wrote for the New York Times identified yourself as a member of American gun culture, and so I'm wondering if you could tell listeners a little bit about your relationship to guns and gun ownership.

Speaker 3: 3:31

Yeah, yeah, I grew up, you know. I really can't remember a time in my life where guns weren't present. So as a very little kid, you know, my father had the traditional gun rack on the wall behind the television and kept rifles and a couple of shotguns up there. He was never big into collecting guns or had lots of guns, but he'd hunted all his life and so most of my relationship with guns and gun culture was rooted in a tradition of hunting. And that's kind of how I grew up and that's really how I operate now, you know before I left to come here.

Speaker 3: 4:08

I was hanging out in a gun shop 15 minutes ago. My best friend is a gunsmith. I own lots of guns. Guns interest me, but most of the guns that interest me and, like I said, my relationship with firearms, going back has always been deeply rooted in hunting.

Speaker 1: 4:26

And I think that that's really intriguing to our listeners. We've been privileged enough to have a lot of authors come on the podcast, and we've had a lot of gun owners come on the podcast. One of the things that I think gets distilled in your work especially in the New York Times piece that Kelly detailed is, I think you really go into the culture in a way that we haven't discussed on this podcast before, which is the many different uses that they are and that folks can have a positive and a negative relationship with them, maybe simultaneously. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:52

But it can be a really complicated feeling for somebody who still owns them.

Speaker 3: 4:55

Yeah, yeah, and I think you know, I think there was a cultural shift that took place that for me, I can, in my mind, it's very easy to look back and see. You know the point in time that that took place as not coincidental, as root and cause. You know I think that there was. There was very much a shift in gun culture that took place after 9-11. For me, it boils down to Islamophobia, you know, xenophobia that they're coming for us, and all of a sudden there was this shift to where gun culture became militarized in a way that it had not been before. And so I think one of the things for me when I'm talking about gun culture is recognizing that the culture that I grew up in you know how I grew up around firearms is not something that a 20-year-old kid would even understand at this point in time. So the only gun culture that you know a 20-year-old kid knows at this point is a postman 11 gun culture, which I think is very different.

Speaker 1: 6:04

So even you know like a Gen Z or a Gen Alpha kid kind of growing up same town as you, you know same, like all things being equal. But just like that, the benefit of time and history has kind of altered that kind of their relationship.

Speaker 3: 6:15

Yeah, absolutely. I mean you know and I think you know it wasn't that the types of weapons that are being marketed pretty much solely at this point, the guns that they're pushing are a very specific type of gun. It's not that those guns did not exist in the before, because they most assuredly did, but that was not what you tended to see, even if you think about like something silly, like Bass Pro Shots or Cabela's and like back in the 90s they used to send, like this, one catalog a year that was like the size of the yellow pages, everything that they carried had all the guns that they carry and you would look through that well, you would never encounter types of things that are on the front of the small newspaper inserts that they used to advertise those places.

Speaker 3: 7:05

There was just a. There was a very real and definitive shift that took place in the early 2000s and I think it's hard to deny why that shift took place.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Could you walk us through, for those of us who aren't familiar sort of what was the culture like that you experienced when you grew up, versus what is today? What is what are in those catalogs? What are they showing? What are they saying?

Speaker 3: 7:29

Yeah, you know, I think that for a whole lot of people you always you had always grown up around guns. You were, you knew not to touch them. You know there, you were trained with them. But it was more like I said it was, it was hunting related and so, like, the very first guns that kids always got were like single shot 22 rifles or single shot shotguns, and there was this stage in development where it was just all tied to hunting. And that's not to say that there wasn't recreational shooting as well, because there was, but we weren't. The things that you saw, the things that you held, the things that were in the home, were all primarily shotguns of different types and bolt-action. Right, it wasn't AR-15s, you know, it wasn't even. There weren't even lots of pistols. I don't think and that's not to say that there were that culture was there as well. I think that there were especially people shooting recreationally with pistols, but even just you didn't see that as much. It was still very much tied to a sporting culture. Just that's the shift.

Speaker 1: 8:43

And do you recall having that? There was this conversation about Second Amendment or Second Amendment extremism. Was that even something that was kind of floating around in gun enthusiast circles, or was it something that wasn't? I feel like the AR-15 has become such an emblem of that that I think that it's changed the conversation. But I'm just curious if that's been your experience.

Speaker 3: 9:05

So if I think back of early media for me the only time as a kid it's funny the things that wind up sticking in your memory as far as big cultural events that you watch take place on the news. So I can't remember Ruby Ridge, but I can remember the conversations that were centered around Ruby Ridge and I can remember kind of a glance into some of what that culture might look like through that. But no, not in the same way. And I would say again, it's not that it did not exist. It did exist, but it did not exist at the level that it does now. It was not riding behind a minivan and they have a stick figure family on the back and it's different types of assault weapons. It's not an AR-15 bumper sticker that says assault life Like it wasn't this cultural phenomenon that it is now.

Speaker 1: 10:01

It's almost become a dog whistle for other things too that have been culturally tied to it Totally absolutely, and you told us you live in North Carolina.

Speaker 2: 10:10

You've been there for generations in your family. I'm wondering obviously you're situated where you're situated. So this might be an unfair question, but when you look at gun culture today, do you see an overarching gun culture or does it differ, depending, perhaps, on where you live, if you live in a city or the country, or if you're rich or poor?

Speaker 3: 10:30

I think that there's a whole lot of things going on. So, for instance, I mentioned that my best friend is a gunsmith. You know that 20 minutes ago I was sitting in a gun store. He's someone who pretty much only wants to work on old guns, like that's what interests him. He has no interest in ARs. Most of the people who come in there don't have any interest in them.

Speaker 3: 10:53

I think the thing that gets lost from inside gun culture. You know where all the different people are, but from the outside gun culture only looks one way and it never looks like me. It never looks like somebody who is actively looking for gun reform, who actively wants to have those conversations. It never looks like somebody who has no interest, desire to ever own or shoot an AR-15. Don't even think that personally. Don't think that they should exist.

Speaker 3: 11:29

That type of person from the outside does not. You know I don't exist, right? You know, if you were to ask somebody from the outside what gun culture looks like, I think it's rarely somebody who would entertain discussions of gun reform and the truth is that I think that they actually make up the vast majority of gun owners in this country. One of the biggest things that happened after I wrote that essay for New York Times magazine was I just had all these people reaching out to me, thinking me for the things that I'd said, because they felt the same way and they knew that it was a voice that had not been given a stage.

Speaker 1: 12:12

I'm curious, because you're definitely not the first person that I've heard say that, and as somebody who now I just move back to my hometown, so now I interact with a lot more gun owners than I did when I lived out here in DC Like, I've heard this conversation a lot, but then when I hear repeatedly, though, from gun owners is that people aren't sharing this as publicly right. They're not sharing it outside of their circle, and I'm wondering if there's a reason why folks aren't sharing it, or are they and we're just not listening the right way?

Speaker 3: 12:39

I think it's. You know, sensibility is not sexy, right? Like the only thing that sells is extremism from either side, like whoever screams the loudest gets handed the microphone We've and that's another huge cultural shift is that as a country, we've lost the ability to entertain any type of civil discourse. You know the only thing, the only people that we give the stage are the people who are screaming at the tops of their lungs, and so I think that there are people who are having these conversations and who are willing to make those types of statements, and nobody wants to listen to it.

Speaker 2: 13:24

And I'm wondering. It sounds like when you say gun culture from the outside but doesn't look like you. Who do you? How do I say this? How do you feel that you've been or you are? People who think like you are misrepresented by people in the gun violence prevention movement and by people who would say they may not be, but who would say it's claimed that they're speaking for gun owners.

Speaker 3: 13:47

So people who are, you know, trying to think of the right word. I would be called a fud by gun culture, and that's meant as a derogatory term. It's meant as someone who you know, who only wants firearms for hunting. You know, and that's not the truth. I have a firearm on my person as we're having this conversation.

Speaker 3: 14:09

I think that if someone wants to defend their home, defend their person, they should absolutely be able to own firearms. But I think that we have launched the way that we've allowed that industry to wiggle around legalities at the expense of human life for profit, I think is disgusting. And so, from the outside, I just don't think that very many people who aren't gun owners, who are actively seeking gun reform, realize that they have allies within the gun owner community, that there are lots of people who are willing to entertain those conversations. Even something like something that we get that gets thrown around all the time is waiting periods. You know, I don't know how many firearms I've bought this year. I would say I'm bad to like, buy and sell, but let's just say it was three or four let's say it was three.

Speaker 3: 15:08

If you had told me that I had I don't know pick a waiting period, name it 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, I don't care, I really don't, and you and I are going to have this conversation now forever. The majority of people at that gun shop that I'm always in would not care. I think that if you need a gun right this very second, you've got something else going on right and that's probably not going to be the thing that's going to help that situation. Like, if you walk into a store it's like I need a gun, I need a gun right this minute. I need it for this reason. But so what I'm getting at is that I think that there are parts of that conversation that get talked about often where, from the outside, you would think there aren't any gun owners who are with us on this, and I think that there are a whole lot of gun owners who would love to have meaningful conversations about what sensible gun reform could look like in this country.

Speaker 3: 16:08

So one of the things that happened after I wrote that essay was that so many people reached out to me wishing that there was an organization outside of the NRA that represented gun owners.

Speaker 3: 16:23

And I thought, the more I've thought about it, I think I could really see something like that gaining foot to where it was fuds like me, you know where it was people who you know, who were wanting to have these conversations and who were wanting to sit down at the table. And when you tell me something that makes sense to you, maybe it doesn't make sense to me. I know for a fact that you and I are not going to agree on everything with regards to gun reform, but I know that if we sit at that table and we sit at that table from a place of mutual respect and where we're both trying to accomplish something we're going to find some middle ground. You know, what I would love to see is for a community to take its voice back. The NRA does not speak for me. The NRA does not speak for the majority of gun owners, you know. But they do right.

Speaker 1: 17:24

Their money makes it seem like they do. They've got the biggest megaphone.

Speaker 3: 17:27

Yeah, and they do. At the end of the day, you know, the things that they say are what become my voice, because I don't have one, you know, on that issue. But I would love to see some type of organization you know start up like. But as far as things that you can do, you know, I think, just recognizing that there are plenty of people who are willing to entertain that conversation and to not lose hope, because the only thing you're hearing are people who you know, who don't see any room for change.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Could we take a second? So you said FUD. I've never heard that before. What is that? An acronym?

Speaker 3: 18:11

or no, it's Elmer FUD, so like pictures. Oh, so they use. So Elmer FUD. You know walking around with a shotgun, I'm going to get you. You ask when we'll have it. The term FUD is thrown around to represent, like I said, it's a derogatory term and the reason it's derogatory or used in that sense is because it's typically people like me who are entertaining.

Speaker 3: 18:37

You know conversations about gun reform. You know the people that are hard and fast. Second amendment they don't want to give anything, they don't think that anything should be limited. That's a very difficult conversation for me, and part of the reason is that you're already, there's already piles of things that I cannot own. Right Like a hard and fast stance to the second amendment in my mind would be that if I wanted, if I was capable of funding nuclear weapons, that I should be able to have them, that I should be able to have anything. And there are already piles of things that I'm not allowed to own. I'm not allowed to own short barreled shotguns, I'm not allowed to own short barreled rifles, I'm not allowed to own machine guns, or at least I would have to jump through a whole lot more hoops if I was going to own, and so what I'm getting at is that the very people who are arguing that this should be an unlimited right are already working from a stance of being limited, like there are already things that you can own.

Speaker 1: 19:47

I think the argument in response, though, from some folks or at least that I've heard, or that Kelly and I get yelled at on the internet about is that those limits shouldn't exist. You know so that they're already working under a limited and unfair system, but I think that that kind of gets to. What you're pointing at is that there's a lot to unpack that's already present in there.

Speaker 3: 20:05

Well, I think what that gets to is that nobody in their right mind would agree that you should operate from a system of zero limitation, that if somebody like Elon Musk, who quite literally does have the money to fund something like a nuclear program if he wanted to, could do that, like that's the other side of the argument, like if there's no limit, there's no limits, and I don't think that very many people, very many sensible people, would say yeah, that's what we should have. And I think when it gets to that point, it's very easy to dismiss that argument entirely and realize that you have to operate from some type of limitation.

Speaker 2: 20:51

And you mentioned that you, even though people like to say, oh, you only want guns for hunting, that you also have guns for defense, just certain types of guns, and I'm wondering how do you weigh your personal calculus when deciding I want to keep a gun for self defense, because that's something to your point? We don't necessarily have those conversations all the time and I'm just curious about if you're comfortable, how you sort of decided you're going to get a firearm. Thank you.

Speaker 3: 21:20

I think the decision for me boils down to the world that we live in now and it boils down to my personal history of having experienced gun trauma, having a gun put to my head when I was a kid. That was something that absolutely altered every, that altered something very deeply about my personality, which is to say that when I walk into a Wal-Mart, I know where every exit is in the Wal-Mart in my town, like it's ingrained in my head. I know the things that I would likely try to get behind if I could not get to an exit. My brain is constantly working like that because it's had to in the past and I think, knowing how responsible I am with firearms, I think it became. It just became something that I wanted to have, and so the majority of the time I carry, I do carry a pistol with me.

Speaker 3: 22:15

When it comes to the types of weapons that I like to own or that interest me, and why they're not, because the other side that is a very legitimate argument is that an AR-15 could be used for all types of sensible things, and it can. You could most certainly have fun shooting them recreationally. You could most certainly chamber them in a caliber to where it's a very viable hunting option. You could most. There are lots of things. Whatever it is, we talk about ARs, and we talk about ARs for a reason, which is that, time and time again, that tends to be the rifle that's used in mass shooter events.

Speaker 3: 22:57

For me, it becomes a matter of recognizing a very serious problem in this country, thinking that we have to try to do something to rectify that, and if it means taking away certain types of weapons and limiting those types of weapons, then that's something that, for me, makes sense. I would be up for a reclassification of those weapons, like a reclassification of those weapons under Title II, so that they're under the same things as short barrel rifles or short barrel shotguns, so that, yes, you can own it, but you're gonna have to jump through a lot more hoops to do it, which means that I can't walk into a store and buy an AR-15 and a couple thousand rounds of 223 and a bucket marketed as a freedom bucket and then walk outside the door and mow down a supermarket. I think the ease with which we can buy weapons in this country and weapons of that caliber in this country is disgusting.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Do you think and so I'm just curious, because we've talked about a few things now waiting periods, reclassification of kind of I would say like high capacity firearms what are some other reforms that you think that folks or at least gun owners who are like you would be likely to go for? That again, maybe the gunman's prevention movement isn't maybe reaching it too appropriately.

Speaker 3: 24:28

I think a major thing is a failure on the ATF. It stopped letting these manufacturers wiggle around legalities. Like you have laws in place, and so you think about a weapon like the shock wave, which is as classified as AOW as any other weapon which you look at. You shoot one. You know for a fact that it's a short barreled shotgun, right, and they're figuring out a way to classify the short barreled shotgun as illegal. The AOW is not. They found a way to wiggle around legalities to sell something that should be that is illegal. You think about, you know.

Speaker 3: 25:10

So one of the big things that's been playing out recently is braces on your pistols, right, and the reason that's a big deal is because the minute you put a brace on it, it's not a pistol, right, it's a short barreled rifle. Well, stop fucking letting them jump around, right, like you know what they're trying to do. And that's the type of thing that makes no sense to me. It makes no sense to me why you would allow a product like a bump stock or a product like an echo trick, why the ATF is allowing products that sole purpose is to increase the rate of fire in semi-automatic weapons. Why is that allowed? And that's what I mean by things that are like that is lunacy, and that's not a matter of new laws. That's a matter of stop letting them wiggle around laws that already exist.

Speaker 1: 26:04

I think like a blatant example. The one that crushes me is ghost guns.

Speaker 3: 26:09

As a whole.

Speaker 1: 26:11

It's not a gun, but like it's not an IKEA table, Like I know what it is. We all know what it is.

Speaker 2: 26:17

Everyone knows what they are, but legally yeah, and those are the sorts of things I mean, sometimes to your point, when we have these laws. A lot of times when I talk to people and these tend to be people who aren't in gun cult they think we have more laws than we already have. I don't know if that's the experience within circles of people who do own guns, but a lot of people think, oh, but there are universal, there are waiting periods or there are these laws and then you tell them there are universal background checks.

Speaker 1: 26:44

Yeah, so these laws do have teeth. If you get caught with a gun, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:47

And then I tell people like, oh no, ghost guns are not. And then they're shocked, and so I wonder if some of it is just sort of clarifying some of these myths that we have laws, there's a lot of things, or that we're enforcing the laws effectively yeah.

Speaker 3: 27:01

Yeah Well, like, for instance, me, I have a concealed carry permit, so when I purchase a gun, I have to fill out paperwork on it, just like you would in North Carolina for anything else. But he does not have to call in a background check, which to me is problematic, right, Because you're assuming that nothing has happened since that concealed carry was issued. I may have a restraining order for domestic violence, which should be a trigger, right? That should be something that limits my ability to buy another firearm, Like the system that we have doesn't even function, and I think that on both sides nobody knows what's going on, and the politicians most assuredly don't. They think that it's cute to put an AR-15 pen on the lapel of a suit and that it means something. Again, it's disgusting.

Speaker 3: 27:55

You know what has happened in this country and I don't. You know that buddy of mine. He's not the kind of person who would talk with you, and what I mean by that is he's old and mountain people don't talk to nobody. But I truly wish that he would, because he has witnessed first hand what every aspect of legislation has, how it has affected things since he started that gun shop in the 80s, and so I think that it's hard to have conversations about. You know the legislation that does exist, because the average person does not know it. I think it's also becomes very hard to have conversations about firearms because people who don't know firearms, they don't know it.

Speaker 3: 28:44

So, like when you start talking about firearms, terms get thrown around and the minute the terminology is wrong that's one of the things that they love to latch on to right. It's like well, what do you mean by that? Do you know what I've said before? That I think that if a president did nothing but codify language around firearms, that would be a major accomplishment, to where, suddenly, we were able to have a real conversation and be talking about the same things. You know we're not operating from any type of dictionary.

Speaker 3: 29:19

The terms get thrown around loosely and the truth is we don't know what we're talking about half the time and all of that is working very much against us. And on the other end of that, you have a whole lot of money constantly trying to make that conversation more difficult. You know, if you remember when you and I met and we were on that panel and one of the questions at the end was whether or not it had to do with money and the answer that was given was that no, I don't think it has to do with money. And then they asked me something after and it was like it absolutely has to do with money. You know, everything in this country has to do with money, and that's what makes it so damn difficult is that you can be sensible and you can learn good things, but you're up against an unfathomable amount of money.

Speaker 2: 30:15

And that kind of brings me to another thing in addition to money. So much this conversation. From what I've experienced is fear, and one of the things that comes up a lot is obviously there's some people that are just cynical actors, but there are a lot of people who are just genuinely, for a lot of good reasons. The world is scary in a lot of ways and are just trying to grapple with. How do I protect myself? And you've written a lot about fear and relationships and I'm wondering the role that you see fear playing, whether it's in the misrepresentations around gun culture or the conversations we have about policy or reform.

Speaker 3: 30:53

I think I just got off of.

Speaker 3: 30:54

I had a novel come out about a month, about two months ago now, but so I was on tour for that novel for about a month and a half, and that novel primarily wrestles with issues of white supremacy. I was in a conversation with someone, though, and a woman, and we were talking about, like I think, that white. I think that the burden of that conversation rests solely on white people, on white America, to be having that conversation, and I was talking about that, and a woman blurted out she said but what if it gets you killed? And I had a couple of different responses, which was one the danger that I have to live with in a moment like that is incomparable to the danger that a black American has to live with 24 hours a day. So suck it up, sally. But at the end of the day, I recognized that she had a very legitimate and real fear, which is that she felt that if she were to stand up publicly and, let's say, to go to a BLM march or something, that she would be placing herself in a very real danger of being killed. And it was hard to wrestle around that For me. I refuse to let fear ever be an obstacle with righteousness, so if I know what the right thing to do is, then fear can never be a limitation of that, and I think, in the end, what I told her was I said that the conversations that need to be had don't have to be had on street corners. I said they need to be taken place at the kitchen table and on the front porch with your friends and your family, and that's the truth of it. But ultimately, what I was left with was just this is exactly what you're talking about, which is that for so many Americans right now, they live in a constant state of fear and panic that at any moment something could happen and it could. I can't imagine being a parent. I don't have children. I can't fathom what it would be like to load that child up onto a school bus every morning or to drop them off in front of a school and know that at any moment something could happen. My partner works at a university. I'm sitting across from that university right now. I would say that it's only a matter of time before they have it, have some type of event take place at that university. And yeah, I think that for the majority of Americans it's become so second nature to us that it's just expected we could end this phone call and all of us look at our phones and there have been another shooting because it happens with that type of frequency. It also makes. That's what makes it so difficult to entertain this conversation Like I think about that essay for the New York Times magazine.

Speaker 3: 33:56

We worked on that for nearly a year and a half and it was because every time we would get into edits another event would take place, the conversation would shift. It was like trying to hold water in your hands. It was constantly moving and slipping through your fingers and you never could pin it down because the conversation was constantly changing. You think about a moment like the man walking into that supermarket in Buffalo, new York and what took place on that day and within a week nobody was talking about Buffalo, new York. And there's multiple reasons they weren't. For one it was because it had targeted a black community and it was easy enough to move on.

Speaker 3: 34:41

But why was it easy enough to move on? What happened that next week? It'll be the vaulties, that's exactly right. The conversation happens with such frequency, those events happen with such frequency that it becomes impossible. It's constantly putting us in the ditch. Or you think about somebody like Stephen Pat and you think about what that conversation looked like following Stephen Pat, and then all of a sudden, we're somewhere else again. It's just constantly. Those events are running the conversation into the ditch over and over again and never allowing us to maintain any kind of direct course.

Speaker 1: 35:24

It's interesting too, because when you mentioned before, the lay of the land has become that you have two very loud opposing sides and then the majority of folks in between is that I think the little avatars have been created too of what somebody looks like, who's for what somebody who looks like is against. I think earlier when you mentioned you said something about how gun owners don't look like you, and you were referring to holding the values that you hold or having its opinion. But it's interesting because if I think of what somebody who's like a gun bouncer mentioned advocate in DC thinks a gun owner looks like, you're the avatar of it. You're a guy, you're a rural southern guy with a beard, you're white, our folks can't see it, but you got a lovely hat Like. People were like yeah, of course, that's what a gun owner looks like.

Speaker 3: 36:07

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 36:09

It makes it difficult, I think, then to then have a conversation, because then folks like your friend who's a gunsmith, who I'd want to talk to, one culturally probably just don't want to talk to a stranger, but then also two very few people want to go into a conversation where they think they've already been prejudged and found wanting and they don't want a conversation where they're just going to get yelled.

Speaker 3: 36:29

Yeah, yeah. I think this is true of the majority of conversations that need to be taken place in this country. We are an air conditioned culture who refuses to be made uncomfortable and I'm especially speaking about white America, which is to say that we refuse to be made uncomfortable for any extended period of time and I think that that's something that we are going to have to address, Like we're going to have to start laying the ugly out on the table and entertaining very difficult conversations and remain uncomfortable for very long, extended periods of time If we're going to make headway on any of the issues that are really ripping this country apart. And the saddest part of that and when I lose hope the most is when I look at the people that we elect, and this is a crowd. I truly think that this is along both sides. These are people who it is.

Speaker 3: 37:36

It is. You know it's pageantry. None of them are having real conversations. You know it's all theatrics, it's all the show, and I just think about how sad that makes me. The only time I'm ever hopeful is when I spend time with people who are younger than me. So, after the school shootings that are that first school shooting that UNC Chapel Hill earlier this year. You know they had another event a couple weeks after that. I don't know, Did either of you see the front page of that school?

Speaker 1: 38:10

All of the text messages.

Speaker 3: 38:12

Yeah, Text messages of students during that event and one of the students said I couldn't believe how unprepared my teachers were. And a teacher who I know, a professor that I know at the university I'm sitting across, who I'm friends with, hosted something on Facebook about how disturbing he found that was something that was expected of him. And what I told him is I said you're talking about a generation who, at every level of education, has had active shooter training and who has had teachers who they knew had active shooter training. So why would you not expect this kid to carry the expectation that you'd that you'd have? Of course, of course they're going to think that, but what I'm getting at is that you've got an entire generation of kids who have grown up not kneeling in the middle of a hallway against the lockers, pray that a tornado don't knock the windows out, who are being taught to barricade doors so that they don't get shot and who live with a very real fear of that. I find it hard to believe that generation is not going to, is not going to, make some very big shifts and I think part of the scrambling that we're seeing on so many levels, you know, with book bands and this, and that is, this last grasp for power, because we're a country that is at a fracture point. Something has to give, and I do find hope in a generation who is fed up.

Speaker 3: 39:57

You know, I don't think that you can have a conversation about gun culture and gun reform without also having very real conversations about American capitalism and white supremacy. You know, all of these things are walking hand in hand and I think that makes it very difficult to untangle. I don't think that we talk enough about gun culture and race. You know I don't think that we talk enough about gun laws and white supremacy in this country. I think when most people think militia, you know they're thinking about militias that that were developed, you know, to fight the British. They're most assuredly not thinking about militias whose primary fear were were revolts by, you know, people enslaved. That's where those laws come from. You know all of this is connected. All of it is deeply connected, and it's deeply connected in a system that was founded upon and perpetuated by white supremacy and where profits were always the driving factor.

Speaker 2: 41:08

And even you know, when I think militia, I grew up in Michigan, so I think Michigan militia, you know like that's where, which is a whole form of extremism today.

Speaker 1: 41:18

So and then tied in two with that race conversation is also that rural and urban divide too. And then how folks like do you fire arms ownership and you race within those two different contexts?

Speaker 1: 41:28

as well because that's so tied to then, to class and everything else. Just love to have you come back. Or we should do a book club for your book, because I do say it's fiction for our listeners, but I think it distills a lot of. I honestly think sometimes fiction is one of the best ways we can do this, because it doesn't feel like you're directly confronting or attacking people with that uncomfortable feeling, but you do have to unpack all of these things through human relationships. So it's a, I think, a much lighter lift for most people and has a heavier impact.

Speaker 1: 41:59

And where can folks find you and your work if they listen to this? And we're like. We like him we need more.

Speaker 3: 42:04

So my books you can find anywhere. But you know, and if you just wanted to read that piece that was in New York Times Magazine, you know if you search my name and gun it would probably pop up. But you know I maintain Instagram and Twitter and all of that. But yeah, the you know my work as far as the books, so you can find them wherever books you're sold Perfect.

Speaker 1: 42:26

I'll link to them in the description of the episode. Yeah and again, thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 42:29

Thank you, so much Thank you, thank y'all.

Speaker 1: 42:35

Hey want to share with the podcast. Listeners can now get in touch with us here at Red Blue and Brady via phone or text message. We call or text us at 480-744-3452 with your thoughts. Questions concerns ideas, cat pictures, whatever.

Speaker 2: 42:51

Thanks for listening. As always, brady's lifesaving work in Congress, the courts and communities across the country is made possible thanks to you. For more information on Brady or how to get involved in the fight against gun violence, please like and subscribe to the podcast. Get in touch with us at BradyUnitedorg or on social at Brady Buzz. Be brave and remember. Take action, not size.